


Five People Who Weren't Surprised to See the World End

by Lyrstzha



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Apocalypse, Gen, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-20
Updated: 2006-10-20
Packaged: 2017-10-05 15:39:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrstzha/pseuds/Lyrstzha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At least five people in the world aren't really surprised by the apocalypse in L.A.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five People Who Weren't Surprised to See the World End

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Frimfram](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Frimfram).



> Set post NFA.

1) Buffy is shocked, but she's not surprised, not really. Ever since she first stepped into her role as the Slayer, she's always suspected that the world would end if she turned her back for a minute. It's all on her after all, isn't it? And every time she's tried to take a breather, have a taste of a normal life, hasn't fate smacked her upside the head?

Which is why, when she runs towards the sound of Dawn's screaming to stand wide-eyed in front of their TV, which is flashing aerial telephoto shots of the fiery wreckage of L.A. accompanied by an urgent babble of Italian—which she _still_ can't follow, damn her lack of language skills—her first words are: "I _knew_ it."

The only thing that really surprises her is that she's so far away when it happens; that doesn't seem right at all. She should be able to run right back and do damage control, stuff her finger in the dyke—and okay, maybe _that_ old story needs some updated phrasing—like the little Dutch boy. That's who she is, that's what she does. She shouldn't be thousands of miles away, smearing her fresh pomegranate frost toenail polish into their new white carpet like old blood, while people she cares about are fighting, maybe dying.

She shouldn't be powerless, and she shouldn't be small and distant and confused, like a regular person. She just keeps thinking that this isn't how the world ends.

Except this time, it is.

2) Lorne, of course, saw this coming days before he watched the fiery glow that turned the sky over Long Beach to premature dawn. It hung like a pall over everyone he chanced to glance at in the last week: the whistling pizza delivery boy, the grungy street-singer who kept station outside Lorne's favorite deli, Harmony mangling a Shakira song as she sorted the morning messages. He had passed Gunn, who was walking down the hall and humming "The Very Model of a Modern Major-General" under his breath, and Lorne had quickly averted his eyes, not wanting to see that blight on his friend's aura, not wanting to be able to distinguish the shape of that doom any better than he already could.

He knew, but there's no point in knowing what's to come when you've already decided to charge ahead into certain death anyway. No point in telling anyone, really, so he hadn't. It's actually almost a relief when the worst finally comes; at least he isn't carrying the knowledge of this alone anymore. Now he can talk about it.

Or anyway, that's his first thought, before he remembers that there's no one left for him to talk to now, no one to carry this burden with him anymore.

He drives on through Long Beach and keeps heading south and east. As directions go, it seems as good as any.

3) Connor finds post-apocalyptic L.A. rather like home, actually. Not in a good way, but still, this all feels too familiar for surprise. When it happens, he pulls his car over on the side of the road halfway to his mortal family's quiet neighborhood to lean out the window and look into the bloodshot-red, sullen sky. Distant, dark, draconic shapes twine through the flicker of flames, and the rain that falls on his upturned face tastes of metal. If there were jagged peaks stabbing into the sky, it might be Quortoth.

He watches for a long moment, then pulls his student ID from his pocket and flings it out of the car to skitter across the wet asphalt. It was a fine gift, and a good life while it lasted, but if there is one other thing he's learned from his father besides how to protect his family, it's how to let go of the things he loves.

And honestly, this life, this world—they never felt entirely real to him anyway. Fire and screaming and death, now _that_ he can believe in.

4) When it happens, Limbo (a rather trendy bar with the demon set in Chicago; Mr. BLZ Bubb, proprietor) erupts in celebration. There are free drinks all around, and a frenzy of dancing.

But Drusilla's already been dancing all day, celebrating alone until everyone else caught up. She'd come in early, and asked for fiddle music. "The stars want music to fall by, they told me. Something with a fiddle while Rome burns like a pretty firefly in the night. Pretty firefly."

The bartender had snorted and put on something with wailing guitars. She'd seemed to think it was close enough to dance to.

Maybe it's the dim, strobing light, or maybe it's the indifference of her partners, but no one asks Dru why tears are running down her face even as her body twists like a leaf on the wind, until a large-eared demon leans down to yell over the music, "Why you crying, pretty?"

She makes a keening noise he can hear even over the thrashing guitar, and she stretches up to his ear to answer, "If the princess is all alone when the happy ending comes, it isn't really happily ever after, is it? The story is all broken, and all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put it back together again."

He blinks at her in a slow tic of nictating membranes, but gamely palms her hips and yells back, "You ain't alone, Princess. I'll look after you real good tonight."

It cheers her up a little to take his eyes with her fingernails, but it's not enough to stop her crying.

5) Anne sees the apocalypse outside her barred window, and says only, "Do we still have those fire extinguishers in the supply closet?"

She opens the front door to furious banging not two hours later, and, just this once, lets policy slide enough to admit a small group of refugees, even though it's after hours. "In the future, you folks are going to need to be inside this door by lights-out, you understand me?"

"It's fucking _armageddon_ out there," one of them, a skinny man in a bedraggled yet expensive silk suit, tries to tell her. "The world is goddamn _ending_. Don't _you_ understand _that_?"

She smiles at him crookedly, and even though she thinks he's probably older than she is, he still seems so, so young. "The world ends every day for lots of people. All my kids here, they've had at least one world go up in flames on them. I've lost three, myself. You just didn't notice until it happened to you."

He gapes at her. "You're _crazy_."

She hands him a set of sheets and points at a free cot. "Maybe. But your bed still needs making just the same."

He throws the sheets down. "None of this shit is going to matter when we all _die_!"

"But if we live, it will." She shrugs philosophically and picks up the sheets to hand back to him. "You do the right thing, you do your best. Sometimes it's enough and sometimes it isn't. But that's all there is."

And she sets the whole new gaggle of refugees to storing water in bottles and pots after they make their beds.

Anne thinks briefly of Buffy, probably somewhere fighting monsters on the burning side of town, and certainly wishes her well. But Anne figures she's not a hero herself; she just keeps going, no matter what, and tries to keep everyone around her doing the same. Maybe it's a smaller calling—and there's certainly no glory in the little wars; she's okay with that—but it's hers and that's enough.

She falls asleep near dawn, with a dragon trumpeting somewhere overhead, still planning a canned food scavenging raid for the coming night.


End file.
